“We are happy to report we were able to remove the family back to their home country on December 17, 2025,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to the South China Morning Post.
Jennie Spector, a volunteer and community activist who spoke to Zheng just two days before his deportation, accused immigration authorities of using the child’s separation as a tactic to pressure him into self-deporting.
“He [Fei] agreed because he wanted to be reunited with his son,” Spector said in an interview. “He was not in a good place … he did tell me he had fear of returning … But I think, sort of prepared himself … he was kind of relieved that he would be reunited with Yuanxin, even if he had to go back.”
Spector described Zheng as a “bright person”, adding, “he was a person who had a lot to offer to this country and our community here in New York, as well as his son. And you know, it’s like they’re just instead seen as criminals to literally lock up in jail”.
Yuanxin had been enrolled in a school in Queens, New York, about a month before he was detained during the Thanksgiving holiday.
